Episode 69

High summer clouds against a dazzling blue sky, the raucous cry of seabirds and a seaport busy with shipping. The pungent smell of fish…

The Listener clutched at this wisp of recollection as it floated by, and pulled it into itself, adding to the small ball of self-awareness which was coalescing in the dark nothingness. Where had it seen this before? What disaster had befallen it that it had no choice now but to float here in darkness and silence, trying to remember? There had been a time when choices were possible, the Listener was sure, a time before this relentless impotence.

Time flies when you’re having fun. A flash of laughing blue eyes, the scent of roses...

Now where had that come from? There was no time here and no way to measure it if there had been. Nor was there any fun.

Suddenly (it could have been seconds or years after) the tinny, distorted voices were back once more.

“It sounds like we’ve got some good news to celebrate then, Doctor,” said the lower-pitched of the two. “We’re not as badly compromised as we might have been by the looks of it.”

”So it would seem,” replied the mosquito-whine of what the Listener now recalled as being a female voice. “But there’s too much at stake here for us to start getting complacent. Box and his cronies may not know all our secrets, but they could still cause trouble and they will start digging around now that they know about Infinity Recycling. That address I gave you, have you found out anything about it yet?”

“It’s a very tasty residence owned by one Elroy Jackson.”

“That name sounds familiar, who’s he?”

“He used to run Baron Samedi’s club – back when there was such a thing.”

“Interesting. Now why would Box have that man’s address in his notebook, I wonder.”

“Maybe he thought Jackson could give him some information about Samedi’s disappearance.”

“Perhaps,” the mosquito-voice agreed, “Fortunately for us, he’s as much in the dark as everybody else. Your people did a thorough job on the club - the police and the fire investigators still have nothing to go on, it seems.”

It was not yet itself entirely sure why, but a tiny pinpoint of anger began to form at the very centre of the Listener’s being.

-0-0-0-0-

To the row of printed photographs looking back down at them all, Harold added that of Agent Moon – retrieved by Othello in his third successful access of the OGS system. Now that his picture was set side by side with that of Agent Wood’s, the family resemblance was clear to see.

“According to Moon’s records,” said Othello, reading from the screen in front of him, “He was the only son of one Rebecca Bailey – a nightclub waitress in Reno. The father’s name is not recorded. Ms Bailey died when Moon was five years old and he spent his childhood in foster homes. He was academically gifted, it seems, and got a scholarship to study particle physics at MIT. After graduating, he travelled around Europe for a year. When he returned, he joined OGS”

“Astonishing,” remarked Teatime, “I have to say the boy struck me as rather dim. Awfully nice and all that, but about as bright as a 5-watt bulb. Particle physics indeed!”

“Not to be rude or anything,” added Harold, “but why would someone so bright want to join OGS? I mean, what you guys do is interesting and all, but I wouldn’t have thought you needed a degree in rocket science to do it.”

Several pairs of unimpressed eyes stared at him.

“What?” he protested, “It’s true! I really don’t mean to offend, but being an agent seems to be a lot of running around, followed by long periods of waiting about, with occasional bouts of dressing-up. I still haven’t figured out what that was all about, by the way.” This last bit was addressed to India, who tutted irritatedly and turned her back on him.

“Well done, old cork!” hissed Teatime, sarcastically, “You’ll have them eating out of your hand in no time at this rate. Just you carry on!”

“It is a valid question,” said Othello, “Most of our recruits do come from a more, shall we say, practical background and OGS doesn’t advertise, so it begs the question of how Moon would have known about us in order to apply in the first place.”

“No mystery there if Agent Wood was Moon’s father“ said Prada.

“OK, so we’ve possibly uncovered a past indiscretion of Agent Wood’s,” said Mercury, “But how does that –“

Box’s voice interrupted from the speaker on the table.

“Moon can’t be Wood’s boy,” he said, “Wood once told me that he couldn’t have kids – he had mumps and it messed up his fertility. My guess would be that he’s Jonathan’s kid - Wood’s nephew.”

“OK. Son, nephew, whatever,” said Mercury, “what does this mean, if anything?”

“Well, if he’s got ties to the Rainbow family,” said Othello, “he might have access to all kinds of stuff – the kind of resources we were thinking our so-called traitor might have.”

“Oh, no, I can’t believe Moon is our traitor,” said Mercury, “I’ve known him since he joined. He’s clean, I’d swear to it.”

“Well he hid his brains pretty effectively,” said Teatime, “who knows what else he may be hiding?”

Episode 68

Pleased with her afternoon’s work, Dr Flowers dropped the used syringe into a sharps bin and headed down the corridor towards the exit of Mercy Hospital.  It had been a good afternoon for two reasons.  Firstly, she had been able to have a nice long chat and catch up over a coffee with her old colleague, ’Aunt’ Sally.  After the usual pleasantries, Sally had been somewhat inquisitive about Flowers’s patient, which was only natural, given that Flowers had contacted her out of the blue to get him put in a private room out of the way.  She had repeated the lie she had used on the phone - that he was a participant in one of her research projects, but that commercial confidentiality prevented her from saying any more.  Sally had updated Flowers with all the gossip from Mercy and, when Sally’s pager had gone off,  they had parted with the usual insincere promises to keep properly in touch.
 
The second reason for Flowers’s good mood was Box.  Under the influence of the barbiturate she had administered, the man had been most forthcoming.  It seemed that he and his cohorts had only the vaguest idea about what she and her team were actually up to, which was good.  Unfortunately, he now knew the name Infinity Recycling, which was not so good, being a possible lead for his team.  She wasn’t too worried about that, though, as the company did genuinely exist and did carry out scrap metal recycling, but the staff there had no idea that their company had other interests – the parent company had been most careful about that.   Eventually, the drugs had taken full effect, rendering any attempt at further questioning pointless, and she had allowed Box to drift off.  A quick rifle through his things had turned up a notebook with an address on Mountainside Boulevard in it.  This she had quickly copied in case it turned out to be useful.
 
All in all, a most productive afternoon.

-0-0-0-0-

Next morning, after a hearty breakfast provided by Mr Teeth, the group assembled in the room Mr Teeth had set aside.

Othello and Mercury had not been able to speak with Box the previous day, as he had been deeply asleep the whole time they had been there.  When visiting hours had finished they had left him a note to let him know they had called in.
 
He was wide awake now, however, and had dialled into the meeting.

Box filled the rest in on what had happened the previous day and they did the same for him.  finally, everyone was up to speed.

"So, before we were so rudely interrupted," said Mercury, "We were looking into the backgrounds of staff and agents to see if we could uncover our mystery snake in the grass."

"We also started exploring the links between Rainbow Industries and project Dynamo, seeing that Agent Wood, who worked on it with Box, is Jonathan Rainbow's younger brother. We now have another lead in the name Infinity Recycling."

"I can do some research on them this morning," offered Othello.

"OK, good.  What about our five potential snakes in the grass?  Does anyone have any ideas how we can progress with them?"

"I think we should definitely strike Agent Ruby from the list," said Prada, "He's only on there because he's from a wealthy background and if that's all it takes to get on the list, you might as well put me on there!"

"Well, ok," conceded Mercury, after a moment's thought   "That still leaves four.  Why don't we set up a war-board and start collating our findings and ideas.  Othello, can you print off pictures of everyone we're interested in?"

The room was quiet for a short while apart from the whir of the laser printer.

Harold decided to make himself useful and pin up the pictures as they came off.  

Agent Cobalt - whose family were in mining - was revealed to be a middle-aged man with greying hair and a broken nose.

Agent Sabre - of the unaccounted-for six month gap in her history - was a young chinese woman of striking good looks.

Agent Oak - the one-time soap actress - was an ageing barbie doll.

Agent Callisto - whose military service had been in explosives work - was a hard-eyed, square-jawed young man in his mid-twenties.

All these, Harold pinned up on the board without comment.

The printer whirred one more time and Harold reached for the page to pin it with the others.

"Who's this?" he said, looking at the round, rather innocent-looking face.

"Agent Wood," replied Othello "or Mark Rainbow if you will.  Box's former partner."

"Nice watch!" said Prada admiringly, looking at the timepiece that could be clearly seen on Agent Wood's left wrist.  "If that's a genuine Rolex Daytona - and since he's a Rainbow it probably is - it's worth a small fortune!"

"Yeah, he was always dressy," Box's voice came crackling from the speaker on the table, "But I'm still not sure whether it's worth including him - I can't imagine he's up to much after his accident."

"Nevertheless, we'll keep him in for now - he culd be getting others to work for him." said Mercury.

Othello was staring at the Wood's picture again and frowning.

"What is it?" asked Prada, noticing his expression.

"I'm sure I've seen him - or someone very like him - recently, in the past few days.  If I could just figure out who it is."

Harold looked at the picture with renewed interest.  Human faces were all a bit of a muchness unless they had some reasonably distinctive feature or other - which this one did not.  
Nevertheless, Othello was right, there was something about the face now that he looked at it properly.  A certain innocent eagerness that reminded him of...

"Agent Moon!" he said, brightly, "That's who he reminds me of."

Episode 67

It was the smell of coffee that finally snapped everything back into focus for Harold. Prada had just brought a pot into the living room to refill the cups of India and Mr Teeth, who had been watching Harold's recovery.

"Welcome back, old shoe," murmured Teatime, "Glad you could join us at last."

Ignoring the little monkey's sarcasm, Harold looked around the well-appointed room in some surprise. "How'd I get here?" he asked, "Last thing I remember was being near Box's friend's house – with you." he pointed at India. "Then everything went very strange."

"Strange, how?" asked India, pen poised over notebook. Othello would never forgive her if she didn't get all this down. He and Mercury had taken the car and headed off to the hospital to see Box.

"One minute everything was normal, then all of a sudden, everything just went dark and I couldn't move or see or anything, and I became really slow."

"Slow?"

"Yeah, I imagine it would be like what you humans call tiredness, but magnified – very peculiar. I couldn't gather my thoughts or focus on anything. Anyway, what happened? How did we end up back here?"

Between them, India and Teatime filled him in on what had happened.

"So, I must have just wandered into this field thing that Box was talking about." he shook his head, "No wonder they were able to capture Baron Samedi and the others – with a thing like that it would be so easy."

"They must have been expecting to find a demon at the house," said Mr Teeth, who had kept quiet up till that moment, "else why would they have switched on their field when they got there?"

"How did they even know to go to that house?" asked Prada, "We've haven't told anybody about it. In point of fact we didn't know it existed ourselves until today."

"Maybe they found you the same way I did," replied Mr Teeth, "or at least the company I hired did, at any rate. Maybe they just followed your car and watched the house for a while."

"Let's hope it was something like that," said India, "because otherwise it means our traitor is a bit closer to home than we thought."

-0-0-0-

RolexBoy's computer pinged softly, alerting him to incoming email. He glanced casually around the room to ensure that nobody was watching him. Nobody was, so he opened the message and read quickly:

No specimen found at the address. Appears that the specimen and the OGS agents were in process of clearing out of there. Only Box was still present. He is now at Mercy Hospital. Flowers is there on damage limitation.

RolexBoy deleted the message with an irritated click of his mouse.

This was not good news: if Agent Mercury and his merry band were still on the loose, there was still a chance they could find out what was really going on. Find out and interfere. RolexBoy had no doubt that they would never understand in a million years what critical and ground-breaking work was being done.  No, they'd shut down the project before it was properly finished, thereby unwittingly depriving the world of the most beneficial scientific advance in its entire history.

Episode 66

Dr Flowers looked down at the patient in room 22b, his bald, brown head dark against the snowy whiteness of the pillows. He was still pretty drowsy after his surgery, which was to be expected. She flipped through his chart, running a practised eye over the scribbled notes and jotted numbers. How many times had she done that in her career, she wondered. She dropped the chart back into its holder at the foot of the bed and the noise caused the patient to open his eyes and stare at her blearily.

“Hello,” she said in her best bedside voice, “I’m Doctor – “ she panicked for a moment as she suddenly realised it would be stupid to used her real name. She cast around the room for inspiration but ‘electrical outlet’ or ‘IV stand’ were not going to be good choices. “Prosperity Cane,” the name of her old Gym teacher rushed into her head to save the day.

“Hmph?” said the patient thickly, smacking his lips and pulling an irritated face.

“Here,” Flowers pressed a glass of water to his lips, “Drink this and wash it round your mouth. We always give patients undergoing surgery drugs to dry up their secretions, so you won’t be able to salivate properly for a few hours, I’m afraid. Still,” she went on brightly, “at least it’s not like the old days when we just used to chloroform people and hope for the best.”

Box slurped the water gratefully. His mouth had felt cottony and his tongue felt about twice the proper size.

“Thanks,” he croaked, “Needed that.”

Flowers replaced the glass on the cabinet beside the bed and took Box’s hand. She turned it over to expose the back of it where the surgical team had conveniently left a canula in place in case emergency drugs needed to be administered post-operatively.

Reaching out, she picked up the syringe she had prepared earlier and inserted its needle into the canula.
“I’m just going to give you a little something for the pain,” she lied soothingly, as she pressed the plunger.

-0-0-0-0-

The late afternoon sun slanted through one of the open swiss-cheese windows and the mildest of breezes carried in with it a heady, incense-like mix of scents from the preponderance of exotic flora in Mr Teeth’s garden.

Harold was sitting on one of Mr Teeth’s sofas, still looking somewhat bewildered, although much more ‘with it’ than he had been. Teatime was still speaking to him in urgent Infernal. Phrases which sounded like ‘pastiche’, ‘curlew’ and ‘chopped liver’ surfaced occasionally in the rapid river of the little monkey’s words. Across the room, India listened with some interest, even though she could not understand a word of Infernal – no human could, since demons were not in the business of giving language lessons. One sound did pop up time and time again, though – Azuriel. She jotted it down in her notebook. She couldn’t be certain of course, but she was pretty sure that this was the demon’s actual name. What luck to have over heard it.

Episode 65

Despite the heat of the day, Agent India suddenly felt rather chilly. Her knowledge of demonkind was admittedly still rather limited as yet, but even so, she had never heard of anything like this happening before. Demons never simply stopped. On Harold’s shoulder, Teatime was still worriedly prodding and poking him in a vain attempt to stir up any kind of response, but it was as if some wicked witch had cast a spell and frozen Harold where he stood.

She fished in her pocket for her phone to call Mercury. Before she could dial the number, however, the phone rang and it was Mercury on the line.

“Oh, thank goodness!” exclaimed India, “I was just going to call you. We’re at-“

“Just a minute,” interrupted Mercury, “Where are you?”

“At Box’s friend’s house, why?”

“We’ve just had a call from Box. He’s in the hospital. Some people came to the house and he got shot getting away from them. They were in a white truck.”

“There’s a white truck here now,” said India, suddenly feeling her courage wobble the tiniest bit. Guns. Again.

“Are they aware of you?” Mercury’s voice was sharp, urgent.

“I don’t think so,” she replied, “We’re in the little street at the back of the house – I don’t think they could see us from where they are.”

“OK, you need to get out of there. Now!”

“Erm, that’s what I was calling about. Something’s happened to the demon. It’s just frozen in place. It’s like it's become a statue or something.”

“What about the monkey?”

India glanced over to see Teatime still fussing over Harold.

“He’s not affected so far as I can see, but doesn’t seem to understand it any more than I do.”

“Hmm,” said Mercury, “Box said the people in the white truck said something about a ‘field’ preventing escapes. I guess that’s what he must have meant.”

“Oh, no, I hope that doesn’t mean they know we’re here.” Said India, feeling her heart speeding up.

-0-0-0-0

The rear door to the Infinity Recycling truck swung open and Moira Ibbotson poked her head in.

“OK, we’re clearing out. Might as well shut down.”

Conrad Black, who had been running the field generator, grunted acknowledgement. He would be the first to admit that his people skills were rudimentary at best, but he didn’t care: it was electronics he was passionate about, and this hunk of complex circuitry in particular. He had designed a large part of it and built most of it himself. It had worked flawlessly every time. He was as proud of it as a parent would be of a gifted child.

He gave the case a little pad as the shutdown sequence started. He turned away from the console to tidy away his notes and, as he did so, he thought he saw a faint flicker right on the edge of the display showing the field’s area of effect. Frowning, he turned back to look properly, but by then the shutdown had completed and the screen was dark.

He drummed his fingers on the console for a few moments, undecided. Should he start the machinery back up or not? On the one hand, it would be a waste of time if there had been nothing there. On the other, ff there had been a demon there and he missed it just because he couldn’t be bothered to check…

Signing, he began the startup sequence: detectors first, then the field generator itself.

-0-0-0-0-

 

Somehow India had expected Harold to weigh less than a real person. His vessel, after all, was not made of flesh and blood, but he weighed more or less what you’d expect a six-foot tall human male to weigh, worse luck.

“This is utterly ludicrous,” she muttered angrily. It was easy for Mercury to say that she had to try and get the demon out of the field’s area of effect, but it wasn’t him who was puffing and panting and losing all dignity trying to do it, was it?

She had initially tried to wrap her arms about Harold’s body just under his armpits, lean his inert form over at an angle and drag him along backwards, but she had lost her grip and he had toppled to the ground.

A mean little part of had her hoped it hurt.

Now she found herself digging in her heels and dragging Harold along a bit at a time using two handfuls of his jacket. If anybody were to see them…

One foot, heave, two feet… How far would she have to - ?

Suddenly, Harold thrashed and cried out, causing India to let go of him and fall backwards hard onto her backside.

In a flash, Harold was on his feet, looking around wildly, a glassy, panic-stricken look on his face. He spotted India sitting on the ground but his eyes flicked away from her without registering anything, he clearly did not know who she was. He was about to bolt, but Teatime sprang onto his shoulder and started talking urgently to him in rapid Infernal. India scrambled to her feet, grabbed Harold’s arm and started pulling him along the street towards where the car was parked.

“Come on!” she urged, “We have to go. Right now!”

-0-0-0-0-

 

Black looked at the screen. Nothing. Not a flicker. Must just have been his imagination or maybe just a random blip. Either way, there was nothing there now. He shut down the machine once more, satisfied that at least he’d checked properly. He opened a little sliding hatch, allowing him to talk to the two others in the front of the truck.

“… it was a total free for all, cows everywhere. Ruined the wedding completely.” Church was in the middle of saying.

“All shut down back here,” Black reported.

“OK, thanks,” said Ibbotson, who was in the driver’s seat. She started the engine and the radio came on with the ignition. The sound of Fit as a Fiddle and Ready for Love filled the truck’s cabin. Black slid the hatch closed firmly, shutting out the noise. He had never understood what people got out of music. For all the pleasure he got from it, he might as well be listening to somebody read out the contents of the phone book or recipes for casserole. Pointless.

He felt the truck lurch into life and start moving off. 

Episode 64

"Dr Holton here,"

"Hello, Sally, it's Evangeline Flowers here."

"Who? I'm sorry, the line's not very good. Can you speak up a bit?"

"It's Evangeline Flowers. Can you hear me now?"

"Yes, clear as a bell now. Shrimp? Is that really you? It's been ages!"

Dr Flowers winced. Trust Sally Holton to remember that old nickname. Still...

"Yes, I know, doesn't time just fly by when you're having fun."

"Oh, are we having fun then?" Dr Holton laughed, "I didn't get that memo. Anyway, what can your old Aunt Sally do for you?"

Trust her to remember that nickname too, thought Dr Flowers as she quickly marshalled her thoughts. Sally was as sharp as ever so it would need to be something credible. Ever since they had begun studying medicine together, Flowers had known Sally Holton to possess the twin drawbacks of being nobody's fool and of being extremely curious. She would have to tread carefully to get her help without too many awkward questions.

"Yeah, er, I was wondering if you could get me out of a bit of a hole, actually."

-0-0-0-

The lady detective, Charity Lambert, dressed in the tight-fitting leather jumpsuit she had sported on the cover of her latest adventure Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death was standing over his bed smiling down at him. In her hands were two empty bottles. He thought it was rather odd that she should be here given that a) he was in the hospital (at least he thought he was, he was no longer sure now), oh, and b) let's not forget the fact that she was a fictional character from the cheap trashy novels which were his secret guilty pleasure. Why on earth was she here? He gazed up at her, puzzled, as she leant down and opened her lusciously-painted lips to whisper something into his ear. Her voice was low, with a slightly husky quality. "Listen very carefully..." He strained to hear whatever it was she was about to impart to him, it was obviously important, maybe it was something to do with the bottles. "...I shall say this only once.."

Abruptly, she dissolved into pink fluffy clouds which cleared to reveal a nurse standing beside his bed.

"Mr Box," she said, "We're taking you down to surgery now."

Episode 63

Dr Flowers tutted irritably as the phone rang, breaking her concentration. In her considered opinion, the telephone belonged to the category of human inventions which she earnestly wished she could live without. For one thing, its impertinent ringing always sounded so damned loud in her small office and she had never figured out how to turn down the volume. She snatched up the instrument.

"Flowers," she snapped.

"Dr Flowers, this is Haynes."

"Yes?"

"There's been a bit of a problem,"

Here we go, she thought.

"Go on."

She listened as Haynes outlined the events that had taken place at the address RolexBoy has given them. There had been no demon present when the team had arrived. One of the people on RolexBoy's list had been there, but had fled and was now in Mercy hospital, having been injured leaving the scene.

Flowers sighed, if it wasn't one thing, it was another. First it was the uprooting of their entire operation to a more secure location, based on RolexBoy's dire predictions of discovery, now he had led them all on a wild goose-chase looking for demons which weren't there, and had exposed their operation anyway. Some 'special advisor to the project' he was turning out to be. She was momentarily at a loss for what to say.

"Where is everybody now?" she asked eventually/

"Church, Ibbotson and Black are at the house still, looking for any more information. Jones and Charter are at the hospital. Charter has managed to confirm the identity of the guy they followed there, Nathaniel Box. He's scheduled for surgery, apparently, so he won't be going anywhere for a while."

Flowers thought for a moment. "Did you say Mercy Hospital?"

"Yeah, Mercy."

"OK, tell Jones and Charter to stay put and wait for further instructions."

"What about the others?"

"Tell them to clear out when they're done."

Flowers replaced the handset and thought for a few moments. Mercy Hospital, Haynes had said. Interesting. She'd spent six years, nine months and eleven days of her life walking its fluorescent-lit wards and hallways (not that she was counting or anything). All may not be lost, after all. She flipped open her File-O-Fax, located a phone number and began to dial.

-0-0-0-

India stopped the car on Ostrich Egg Drive which led onto Goose Egg, where Box's friend's house was, and switched off the engine.

There was a short, rather defensive silence, which India broke.

"I suggest we get to the end of Goose Egg and check out the lie of the land from there. If it all looks ok, we can move in a bit closer."

Harold nodded, it sounded like a plan, and they both got out of the car.

Teatime proved his worth when they got to where Goose Egg and Ostrich Egg joined. There was a high hedge bordering the end property on Goose Egg which meant that they could not see into Goose Egg Drive itself without walking around the corner and thus possibly revealing themselves to anybody who might be lurking at the house..

"Why don't I climb to the top of that hedge for a quick recce," the little monkey suggested, as Harold and India stood debating what to do.

"Go for it," said Harold, "If there is anybody hanging around there, they almost certainly won't be looking out for a monkey."

Teatime leapt lightly from Harold's shoulder, and quickly and competently scaled the hedge, disappearing from view.

"He's a smart little monkey," said Harold, keen not to let the silence deepen into awkwardness.

"I suppose," India agreed noncommittally. As a child, she had been fascinated by how clever animals were after hearing some old professor giving a series of talks about it on National Public Radio. Of course, she knew perfectly well that Teatime wasn't just an ordinary monkey, that he'd been given an upgrade, as it were. In her opinion, therefore, he didn't really deserve any credit for his cleverness, unlike the dolphins and pigeons in the old professor's talks.

"Yes," continued Harold, "he really is a masterpiece of infernal engineering."

"I'm not sure 'masterpiece' is the word I'd use," replied India, dryly. "I think what was done to him was wrong. There are some things that shouldn't be meddled with."

"Well maybe so," replied Harold, "but some human scientists were about to do some serious meddling of their own, so you can hardly blame him for wanting to get away."

"I guess," India admitted.

At that moment, Teatime's head appeared, looking down on them from the hedge-top.

"There's a big white truck parked outside the house," he informed them. "There's no sign of Reverend Box, though, that I can see."

"I wonder if he's hiding in the house, waiting for the truck to go away." said Harold.

"Perhaps we should approach from the back and see if we can see anything."

They walked back along Ostrich Egg until they came across a little side road running parallel with Goose Egg Drive. They turned down it and were delighted to discover that the backyards of the houses on Goose Egg backed directly onto it, screened off by a high wooden fence.

"We should be about there I think," India said, stopping next to a section of fence. She tried to peer through the gaps in the planks, but could see nothing but foliage. "Would Mr Teatime care to do the honours, once more?" she asked.

"I expect he'll b–" Harold started to say, and stopped.

India turned to him questioningly.

Harold was standing completely still next to the fence, and had frozen in mid-sentence, his lips parted to say his next word. He was looking straight at her – or at least at where she had been standing before she had turned back to him. One of his hands was stretched out where he had evidently been about to reach out and touch the fence.

"What's going on?" said India, "Why has it stopped?"

"I have no idea," said Teatime in a worried voice.

"Demon?" said India, peering up into Harold's still face. "Hey! Come on!" She snapped her fingers in front of his eyes but he didn't so much as blink. "If this is one of your tricks.." she muttered.

"I really don't think it's any trick," said Teatime.

India jabbed Harold firmly in the chest with a finger. No reaction.

Teatime tugged sharply on a lock of his hair. No reaction.

"Come on, old button," he urged, "Now's not the time to fall asleep on the job."

But Harold simply stood there, the breeze ruffling his hair, as still and as lifeless as a statue.